The Fourth

It's been halfway to forever since I've clicked open this space. A move and a school year and a cobwebby middle-age brain to contend with. The little things race by without my seeing or recording and I don't know how to start here again. Words are work and need mind space to percolate. I'm already long on work and short on space. Where to start?

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. A new birthday lens and a few memories of the Fourth. I grabbed the camera to savor the things that made me smile.

A yellow bird in the yellow sunlight in a cheerful yellow house. Buttercup, she's called.

Girls in straw hats in a thorny tangle of blackberries. Fresh blackberry cobbler for breakfast.

Daisies on the hills and insects fluttering up with each step in the grass.

Fresh blueberries and cream cheese frosting on sugar cookies. Assembled by at least a dozen hands. Devoured by more than a dozen mouths.

We laugh because a few years ago we carried these boys in backpacks and made hardtack and pretended to sail on the Mayflower and now there is a driver's ed manual on the kitchen counter and fireworks and fire in the kitchen.

And out in the yard in the dark, a humming street light, Mike's Hard Lemonade, IBC root beer (Charlie held his in his mouth to make the fizz dissipate) and the fireworks crackle and sizzle and pop. And the children do not cry at the noise. They cheer; they clink bottles and they laugh.

I want to wrap my arms around this moment and hold them all in it because soon they will read that driver's ed manual and they will drive away and come back to us carrying baby boys in backpacks.